Master Grade Sinanji Version Kai Preview

I remember when this kit first came out. The Unicorn was awesome and cool and everyone was talking about it. A friend of mine mentioned the Sinanju and all I could say was, “what the hell is that?” I’m not sure if it was my ignorance of Master Grades at the time, but I had no idea what this thing was! I wasn’t following anything for Unicorn, because at the time it was just some novel to me that was doomed to die in obscurity after a couple Master Grades only the crazy fans were interested in. Funny how times change.

Honestly? If it weren’t for the Nu Gundam, I’d probably have no interest in this thing. What’s worse is Bandai has plans for an OVA version of this suit, so it’s entirely possible that I just wasted my time buying this thing because a superior version is coming out. Just my luck, huh?

Obviously, there’s a lot of kit here, probably even more than the Nu Gundam ver Ka. Yet, I’m not sure what I’m getting myself into here. This was the last kit of 2008, yet it uses no polycaps. This kind of worries me, namely after my experience with F91 and Crossbone. It’s entirely possible it won’t be as bad here, but we’ll have to see. The idea certainly didn’t stick, considering kits these days use polycaps again.

I, like any other sane modeler, hate the stupid little tubes. So, for my project, I decided to delve into the world of crazy third-party pieces in addition to my standard allotment of decals. I wanted to buy replacement thrusters, too, but I couldn’t find any that I liked. All the thrusters I saw looked ugly with giant poles sticking out of them, and the ones that looked better required drilling. How about no.

In addition to some standard decals (which had to be third-party because the Bandai ones are too hard to find), I bought some metal decals for the gold details, because there’s no way in hell I’m painting those. Interestingly, the kit actually came with waterslide decals for the gold bits, but they just aren’t as shiny as I would have liked, so I’m opting to go with the metal ones. I’ve gathered that they’re more like stickers, but the finish is too awesome to not consider.

Still, I have to wonder how hard it would have been for Bandai to actually make these molded details. It feels like a cheap way out for them, especially on a 1/100. I’m very much in the school of “if you don’t like the way it looks out of the box, you should paint it”, but this is a bit much, especially when you take into account how hard those details are. Trust me, my Geara Zulu was no walk in the park.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t equal parts excited and terrified of this project. It’s incredibly far out of my comfort zone, but I feel it’ll be good practice for when Bandai releases the Sazabi later this year. If you want this kit now, I’m not going to stop you, but just remember than an OVA version of the Sinanju is coming soon, so go for that when it comes out at FPNYC!